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Archive for October, 2011

At the Memorial Tanka

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on October 20, 2011| 1 Comment »

Behind the altar
a window paned
with red glass—
this more comfort
than hymns

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Forecast for Mourning

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 20, 2011| 3 Comments »

for my father-in-law

I do not know how to remember him—
his bluster, thunder, warmth, his glassy sea.
He was like weather, changing all the time.

Like two words that almost, but do not rhyme,
that’s how we loved. We’d try, but seldom met.
I do not know how to remember him.

I’d hide a bit each time that he’d come in,
unsure if he would snarl or want to please.
He was like weather, changing all the time.

Drought. Flood. The rain with softest hands
that turns to hail. A mist that’s miles deep.
I do not know how to remember him.

White out. And the blue sky after. Wind
that breaks the limbs. And docile morning breeze.
He was like weather, changing all the time.

The memories rearrange like leaves in autumn.
What is this urge to want to rake them neat?
I do not know how to remember him.
He was like weather, changing all the time.

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October

Posted in Uncategorized on October 18, 2011| 3 Comments »

Here at the half of autumn
when the leaves fall and don’t
fall, every path feels like a path.

There is no ignoring that every
moment matters. A wind comes.
Another half of the golden grove is gone.

Last night I met a man who lost his mother.
He was on a beach in Wales when she died
in Oregon. The waves did not speak the news:

She’s gone. She’s gone. He wishes he
could have just one more conversation with her
to tell her that he loves her. And I want

to tell him she hears what he feels. But
neither of us would believe it.
Tonight I sat on a plane beside a man,

so close we had to work to not touch,
and never once did we look at each other.
I sat beside him, dumb, pretending to sleep.

This is how it feels inside autumn,
as if the structure of things is starting to show—
whatever is glittersome,

lush, green or gold, is falling
away to reveal whatever is open,
emptying, swaying.

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This is Just to Say …

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 18, 2011| 2 Comments »

it’s probably yours

the nothing
found today
on my hike

thank you

between
the leaves

the spaces
so
open

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Really?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 16, 2011| 1 Comment »

you break
and I break
and in the breaking
a writhing, grisly
foul mess—
and what are
these petals
I see
?

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Though All Around Us, Entropy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 15, 2011| 2 Comments »

It holds things in—
the bile, the bones,
the heart that floats,
the glands, the spleen.
It cages the pulse

and encases the dance
of corpuscles
and ligaments.
It holds what’s left
of this woman who’s wept,

and it does not scar
after runnels of tears.
It shows the years
that passed but does
not tell their secrets.

It holds the brain,
the gut, the tongue,
even the heaving
of race-run lungs,
and tries to be

a container for grief,
but it leaks, the skin,
and grief, it spills,
it rushes, stampedes,
unravels and floods,

unreels and keels
and erupts. It’s messy,
grief, and its twin sister
bliss, both of them
practiced escape artists.

It’s just doing
the task it knows
best, the skin,
dutifully trying
to hold it all in.

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Autumnal

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 15, 2011| 2 Comments »

Walking together alone
in the dappled golden
aspen grove
our shadows
become light

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If It’s in Any Way Possible

Posted in Uncategorized on October 13, 2011| 2 Comments »


I tell my son that no one knows.
But mom, what happens when we die?
Do we come back? Where do we go?
I tell my son that no one knows.
But when I die, I say, I’ll show
up everywhere you are. But why?
I tell my son that no one knows.
what happens when we die.

*this poem is an old French form, the triolet … um, I think I’ll come back to edit this one.

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Pantoum for the Ego

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 12, 2011| 1 Comment »

Sometimes it’s hard to let things go.
They keep returning to the mind
like echoes in a narrow canyon—
hello, hello, hello, hello.

They keep returning to the mind,
these images, these pushy thoughts,
hello, hello, hello, hello,
like stones dropped into glassy ponds.

These images, these pushy thoughts—
like neighbors who keep knocking, knocking,
like stones dropped into glassy ponds.
And trying to stop them makes it worse.

Like neighbors who keep knocking, knocking,
these same darn thoughts, these same darn thoughts.
And trying to stop them makes it worse.
I give up, I give up, I give up, I give up.

These same darn thoughts, these same darn thoughts,
I’m, encircled by these same darn thoughts.
I give up. I give up. I give up. I give up.
Oh make them stop, please make them stop.

I’m encircled by these same darn thoughts
like echoes in a narrow canyon.
Oh make them stop, please make them stop.
Sometimes it’s hard to let things go.


*The pantoum is a poetic form from Malaysia that plays on repetition. Two lines, the second and fourth lines, are carried forward into the next stanza as the first and third lines. The poem ends by repeating the first and third lines from the first stanza, weaving them with the second and fourth lines from the penultimate stanza.

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Every Moment, Precious

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 12, 2011| 3 Comments »

Somewhere in the mail
a picture of my son
sent yesterday
to eyes
that will not open again.

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